After a one-month break, Starlink is back in expansion mode and has now been launched in Georgia (the country & not the US state). 🇬🇪
Georgia marks the 64th country that Starlink is licensed to operate. In 2023 alone, it has expanded into 19 countries.
Most recently, Starlink was introduced in Zambia, The Bahamas, Malawi, Malaysia, Kenya, Guatemala, and many others.
The majority of Starlink’s market expansions have been aimed at African and Central American countries, so Georgia represents somewhat of a geographical change.
In the interim, Starlink also managed to grow to over 2 million customers and got rid of the waitlist requirements for its Residential tier in the US (including Georgia the state lol).
Continuing to launch in new markets, especially bigger ones like India or Indonesia, remains key for Starlink.
After all, SpaceX and Musk do eventually plan to spin out the entity and take it public, so having recurring revenue from millions of subscribers is key in telling its story to investors.
Meanwhile, the Residential package, Starlink’s most commonly adopted plan, is priced at GEL 160 (~ USD 60) per month.
Hardware and shipping will cost customers another GEL 2,015 (~ USD 745) for the Standard rectangular antenna.
Feel free to check out all the different prices that Starlink charges by visiting our global price list.
Personally, I have a hard time seeing how Starlink will reach significant adoption at those price points, especially on the hardware side.
I recently visited Georgia for a few weeks and cell phone as well as 5G/LTE coverage was strong – sometimes even in its vast mountain areas.
Plus, unlimited data plans for mobile phone are available at a cost of about USD 25 per month.
Add to that the fact that the average Georgian household makes less than USD 600 per month, in a country totaling around 3.8 million citizen, and you likely will only have a few thousand people adopt Starlink at best.
That said, not every part of the country, especially the country side, is well connected. Starlink’s launch may, for example, expedite the purchase of homes in those areas.
Ultimately, the adoption of Starlink in Georgia may serve as a catalyst for convincing neighboring countries, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, or Turkey, to whitelist the technology as well.
Please consider updating you map to include the Russian-occupied territories of Georgia
Hi Daniel, we at Starlink Insider are not officially affiliated with Starlink. So they would need to be the ones changing it.
“I recently visited Georgia for a few weeks and cell phone as well as 5G/LTE coverage was strong – sometimes even in its vast mountain areas.” 5G in saqartvelo? You shouldn’t have been drinking so much chacha.
Was great around Kazbegi area.
Great article. Wondering if I purchase Starlink (Standard Fixed) in Batumi, that the latency or “good” speeds (consistent around 100 mbps) would get bumped for other Priority users? Or because there are so few subscribers in Georgia right now, I might experience more consistent high speeds? Thank you for any advice.
Hi Nikos, wouldn’t worry about other users too much. There likely won’t be much bandwidth competition for speeds to diminish. Point in case: I regularly get > 200 Mbps in Germany.